Local faces: The man behind Dulwich’s beloved football team

～ LOCAL FACES ～ Game Changer

john kell

Growing up in Peckham there are a lot of distractions good and bad - and football was a positive one for me.

Dulwich Hamlet boss Gavin Rose on exile, a new ground, growing up with Rio... and finally getting to take a break

“It shapes your character and the person you are now.” Dulwich Hamlet boss Gavin Rose is talking about growing up in south London. “I learnt everything from my upbringing there, good and bad,” he says. “Obviously as you get older you try and refine yourself, but you don’t forget where you come from. I’m really proud of growing up in south London.”

Gavin is one of the most recognisable faces in Dulwich. He’s the Hamlet’s longest-serving manager after taking over in August 2009. In those days, the club rarely saw crowds of more than 200. Just over nine years later, 3,002 fans packed into the ground for the return to East Dulwich on Boxing Day, 2018, after their ten-month exile in Tooting following a dispute with Meadow Residential, the owners of Champion Hill.

In over a decade he’s hardly had time to draw breath and reflect. Not only is he in charge of one of the most progressive and fastest-growing clubs in non-league football, Rose and assistant Junior Kadi also oversee the Aspire academy, through which players such as club legend Nyren Clunis progressed into the first team.

After previous play-off heartbreak in the Isthmian League, the Hamlet were promoted to the sixth tier for the first time in their history when they defeated Hendon on penalties in the 2018 decider.

Gavin finally got a break this year, though not how he would have chosen, with football’s coronavirusforced suspension, before planning began again for the 2020-21 season, set for an October start.

“In a sense it was quite refreshing at the start getting the time off, because normally I don’t get time off from football,” he told The South Londoner. “I encouraged the players and staff as much as they could to try and relax mentally.

“It was good in the early part to get some downtime without having to plan immediately for another season. But then I started to think about the puzzles that were in front of us.”

Gavin, 42, grew up in Peckham, attending Camelot and Peckham Park primary schools, before his secondary education at Bacon’s College.

It always his ambition to work in football.

“For me it was, though you don’t want to tell your mum that when you’re going to school!” Rose jokes. “It was a great, positive distraction for me. Growing up in Peckham there are a lot of distractions good and bad, and football was a positive one for me.”

He moved to East Dulwich – “a stone’s throw

～ LOCAL FACES ～

away from Champion Hill” – when he was 21, and now lives in Brixton.

Quietly spoken and considered, Gavin admits he’s not much of a pub man, apart from the occasional drink in East Dulwich with his players after games. He enjoys African cuisine in 805 Restaurants on the Old Kent Road, and the Italian Pierluigi’s in Beckenham.

He is a lifelong friend of former England and Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand. The pair launched a campaign last year, The South London 4 South London, which aims to help young people in Southwark, Lewisham and Lambeth into professions, particularly in the technology sector.

That’s reflective of Gavin’s concern for wider societal issues. On the popular Forward the Hamlet podcast last month, the hosts and Dulwich striker Danny Mills discussed the issue of Champion Hill’s mostly white crowd in contrast to the predominantly black team they support.

That hasn’t escaped his notice.

“Does it bother me? Not really,” he says. “Growing up in football you expect the crowd to be predominantly white in England anyway. It’s not alarming for me.

“I’ve heard comments over the years that the team has been predominantly black and I always find that more of an alarming comment. At the end of the day you pick a team of people, you’re not picking colours.

“It would be great to represent the community a little bit better with the different races in south London. As we know there’s a vast array of different nationalities and it would be great to see some

“There’s a vast array of different nationalities and it would be great to see some of those communities coming into the club and watching games.

of those communities coming into the club and watching games.

“Even though it may well be predominantly white I think it’s a very welcoming community and fan base. Sometimes you may look at something imagewise and think, ‘I may not fit in there’, but everyone would fit in really well at Dulwich.”

The Hamlet are entering an exciting phase in their history after their planning application for a new stadium was approved last month.

Gavin is typically modest when asked about the prospect of leading the team out for their first game in the new ground.

“It would be great from a personal point of view having been at the club so long and knowing the battles that we’ve faced,” he admits.

“But I think the main thing really for me is to concentrate on the short term to try and get the club competing and get over this pandemic and period that we’re in. It’s great to dream in life, but we can’t look too far forward. I think that’s probably my mentality at the moment.”